When I smell old spice cologne, when a see a man with a certain hair or eye color, when someone looks at me a certain way...

It begins, sometimes, by being triggered.  By sensing my emotions spin out of control over some relatively insignificant detail--or so I think.

I have recovered so many memories by asking-- why.  Why do I feel the way I do?  I don't try to force it.  I don't obsess over what may have happened. Perhaps I wasn't even there, mentally and emotionally, when the incident occurred, because I disassociated.  My body stayed put but all the rest of me took flight like a flock of frightened birds.  I disassociated in order to survive. How can I remember what happened if I wasn't really there?

And yet, there is One who knows my past in excruciating detail-- for He was there with me.  He is omnipresent--always present in every place, at all times.  Nothing escapes His notice.  And He has not forgotten. He will bring all things to my remembrance that are needful for my recovery. The Holy Spirit of God who lives in my heart now occupied it then as well.  There are many questions to be answered, and I have asked them of Him.  Why did you not intervene?  Why did you allow an evil man to do what this man did?  Why... Why...Why...

And He has given me peace. I don’t have all the answers, but I have come to understand some of them.  Enough to help me know my Heavenly Father’s heart, and accept His ways.

We must realize that we don't always have to consciously remember everything that has traumatized us in order to recover from it.  We haven't forgotten--we just remember it in different places.  Rather than storing traumatic memories our conscious mind, we may force some memories into the dark recesses of our subconscious mind and spend every ounce of our emotional energy trying to keep it there.

Those are the memories that need to come out in order for us to heal!  We don't need to dig them up--we just need to find a safe place to rest and let them come.  We need to protect our soul in the process--and never, never, walk through the agony of recovery alone. 

We must be wise enough to seek help, humble enough to accept it, and brave enough to act on it. An action that moves us toward recovery may be no more, in the beginning, than asking a simple question--why.  A simple question that costs so much--so much courage, so much pain, and so much risk.  I am here to tell you that it is worth it.  No matter what it costs. Recovery is the sweet joy of taking back the treasures that have been ripped away from us. We can't do it alone--but we CAN do it together.